Page:The Popular Magazine v72 n1 (1924-04-20).djvu/101

 cry any more. It's going to be all right!”

She raised her head, and her face, wet with tears, was close to his.

“Oh, Geoff, I am so sorry—so sorry and ashamed and humble. If You will help me—I have been mad, I think. It was so insidious. It began when I was so interested in the two year olds at Newmarket. You remember how I used to go out early to watch them? I used to have headaches and one day Sover offered me a headache cure—and somehow, without thinking, I got to rely upon it. Oh, if only you will help me to make things as they used to be, Geoff!”

“Yes—I know, I understand. It's all right now, dear,” he murmured, soothing her, comforting her. “It might have happened to anybody.”

Salaman, smiling benign approval, went quietly out to deal with Sover.

But that one was no longer there.

To Salaman's furious inquiry the butler, hovering uneasily about the hall, replied that Sover had left ten minutes before, picking up a taxicab immediately outside the door.

“I had received no instructions to detain the man, sir,” said the butler.

Salaman conceded that it was his own fault, and stood for a moment pondering whether he should return to the Barfords or not. He decided that he would not. It was so much more dramatic that way—just to drop into their lives, do them an immense service, and disappear. Yes, it would be very dramatic—and like many physically small men, Salaman Chayne had a great weakness for dramatic effects.

And, in any case, he could always see the Barfords later. Just at present it was Dragour who demanded all his attention. So he reasoned.

But, as he walked jauntily homeward he was forced to confess that the affair had brought him no nearer to grips with the drugmaster. True, he had snatched a victim and certain spoil from the powerful and elusive scoundrel but he had not advanced more than a very little upon the trail which he was following and intended still to follow with such grim tenacity.

“But I shall come up with him in the long run—if it takes me half my lifetime,” muttered Salaman, reaching for his cigar case. “For Sover should be easily enough located again. And sooner or later, if watched, he will let fall a clew, a thread that will lead to Dragour.”

But there Salaman miscalculated—and realized as much when he saw that evening's paper.

It was Kotman Dass who handed it to him, pointing out some flaring headlines:

Salaman read through the account. There was little information beyond the bare facts.

Early that afternoon one, Mr. Gregory Kiss, a private detective investigating the suicide of Sir James Argrath, had visited the flat in which the suicide had taken place. He found the hall door open and, as no answer to his repeated rings was forthcoming, he had entered, discovering the body of the jockey Sover stretched on the floor of the chief room. He was quite dead—the doctor whom Mr. Kiss had called at once stating emphatically that he had been shot through the heart from behind. A curious feature of the crime was that the dead man's fingers were closed tightly on an ivory piano key which he evidently had taken from the piano in the room. The rest of the report was conjecture and a brief account of Sover's life career as a jockey.

“Well, what do you make of that, Dass? Who killed the man?” asked Mr. Chayne.

Kotman Dass blinked dully at his partner over a bookful of hieroglyphic symbols.

“Itt is peretty obvious that thee man Sover was shot by Dragour or one of his creatures,” he mumbled absently, as their man brought in a note for Salaman.

“Why?” demanded the little man.

“Highlee probablee because Dragour suspected him of treacheree—or anticipated that he would turn traitor; maybe also that he had discovered in some way secret of piano keys—too late; maybe he knew too much—thatt can be dangerous fault in people who work for men such as Dragour.”

“But that's only guesswork, Dass,” objected Salaman, opening his note and beginning to read.

The elephantine Mr. Dass shook his head.